How many 9 inch balloons are needed to lift a 600g piece of wood?

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Clarification of Question by jockerboy-ga on 24 Nov 2006 07:53 PST

HELIUM GAS BALLOONS

Hello jockerboy, your answer is a simple application of the Archimedes
bouyancy principle. Here are a couple of good sources:

http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/lift.html

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/WindTunnel/Activities/ArchAnswer5.html

Using numbers from the first source you can expect 1.03 grams of lift
per liter of helium. Each of your 9 inch balloons has a volume of
6.255 liters. You should then get 6.44265 grams of lift from each
balloon. Therefore, it would take 94 balloons to lift 600 grams. This
is only an approximate number because these calculations were done at
STP (20 degrees C and 760 mm Mercury) and the weight of the balloons
themselves was neglected. If you can come up with an accurate weight
of your theoretical balloons, we could get a more exact answer.

I think that this should answer your question, but if there is
something I have neglected please ask for a clarification.

Redhoss

Nine-inch latex balloons weigh about a gram. Add a gram or two for any
attaching device(s) and you'll be pretty close to losing half your
lift.